RBI widely seen holding rates

Mumbai

The Reserve Bank of India is widely expected to keep rates steady when its two-day monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting concludes on Friday. The RBI said it will hold the MPC meeting from Oct. 7 to OCt. 9, having delayed it by a week in order to give the government time to appoint three new external members to the panel.

The government named its nominees late on Monday. Ashima Goyal is currently a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic advisory council, while Shashanka Bhide is a senior advisor at the National Council for Applied Economic Research - a New Delhi-based think - and Jayanth Varma is currently a finance and accounting professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. They will join three RBI members on the panel.